Broadband or Bust

Because life isn’t exciting enough living with a pair of lively Labradors and their minions, the cast of the Jungle Book, the Captain and I decided to crawl into the Pony Express Age and install cable television and high speed Internet access in the house.

Actually the idea for the high-speed Internet came from the boys. When they offered to share the password-protected lock they installed on the bathroom door, we agreed immediately. We’re reasonable people after all.

Just now, the Captain and I are sitting in the living room. Alone, a suspicious circumstance because it's never happened before. “It’s quiet.” I can’t help remembering the “Let’s dress the Dachshund in a tutu” fiasco of ’98. “Too quiet.”

“Enjoy it.” The Captain of my Hobby Shop is a computer technician by trade. He could hack into Bill Gates Christmas decorations and install an Apple tree topper without tarnishing the angel’s halo. He has just put in a wireless router so that we can all share the broadband. This works about as well as the North and South Koreans share airspace, but he’s done his part.

Tonight for the first time since building blocks gave way to bandwidth, I haven’t had to ask permission to use my computer. The conversation usually goes something like this:

Me: “My turn to use the computer.”

Random Youth: “What’s for supper?”

Me: “Nothing if I don’t get a turn on the computer.”

Random Youth: Sigh. “Fine. Let me kill this guy first.”

Twenty minutes later, the guy is still alive and I’m wondering who’s going to make the sacrifice in his place. Maybe I can talk the dog into taking one for the team.

But tonight the house is so quiet I can hear dust mites tatting lace in the living room drapes.

I couldn’t stand it any longer. Nothing gets to a Mom faster than “that infernal racket” or absolute silence. “What do you suppose they’re doing?”

“Holding hands and humming I’d Like To Teach the World to Sing?”

I followed the day-glo light of laptap monitors down the hall. To my bedroom. The only room in the house with matching sheets.

The boys, who can’t share the back seat of a beachbound minivan for more than a two-minute warning are piled up in neutral corners of the sleigh bed turned Internet Café, watching THE SAME You Tube videos and instant messaging one other. I tiptoed back to the living room.

I might not be happy with the details, but I’m content that all those news reports about families growing apart are wrong. As long as my guys are wireless, I don’t have to come unglued.

Two Cents

As a cost conscious individual whose retirement funds are tied up in the spiraling gasoline market (I still owe three monthly installments on the tank of gas I bought before the bust), I am always attuned to ways of saving money. I’ve found as I’ve traveled through the express lane of life that there are certain factors that clue you in to the road most likely paved with full-priced, economically unstable gold-plated bricks. Keep your eye out for these and grab the next exit toward the coupon-cobbled road of the thrifty and impoverished. This road is often paved with copies of McDonald’s dollar menu.

Always pay attention to product descriptions:

Medication is a specialized treatment that costs not less than twenty-five dollars per designer colored tablet and causes side effects which include, but are not limited to, drooling, drowsiness, hives, death, and poor fashion choices.

Medicine is a couple of aspirin. Without the easy-swallow buffered coating. Side effects: dropping twenty bucks on fashion magazines and makeup at the drugstore at time of purchase.

The department store that advertises a fashion pant is offering up a pair of slacks painstakingly pieced from delicate fabric made of handwoven alpaca wool. The material is priced per square inch on the same rate of exchange used to determine the value of real estate in Beverly Hills. Likewise the word “trousers” used in describing women’s clothes indicates payment in large bills or barrels of crude oil.

On the other hand, a pair of pants, while seemingly twice as much commodity for the money, is often found on the clearance rack at WalMart for ten dollars. Elastic waistband is complimentary. To say the least.

Another important factor to remember is advertising. If a restaurant advertises a lunchtime taco special at the drive-through, you can feed your entire office with a coupon and a twenty dollar bill, with extra salsa to spill on your upholstery. However, if a restaurant is located in a grove of trees on the outskirts of the shopping district, boasts no windows, is barely visible due to subtle lighting, and has an advertising campaign passed by word of mouth over cocktails at the country club, you could book a cruise for a week of summertime fun in Los Cabos, before you afford one of their shrimp.

Likewise, keep in mind that any beauty product advertised by a film star is likely made from the antennae of Guatemalan butterflies and is priced by the gram.

But any product advertised by Paris Hilton is cheap, which in this case is not the same as inexpensive. Choose wisely or risk being followed home by paparazzi with disposable cameras demanding a cleavage shot or an outraged Chihuahua in a tutu trying to serve papers for emotional distress.

Remember that the educated shopper can always find the good buy. And now that the price of gas is coming down, you can save for that hamburger you always wanted. Or afford to give the snotty waiter offering you the dinner special--a glass of water and an olive--at the fancy restaurant a piece of your mind--your own two cents worth. Plus tax.